Culture Change – Being A Christian In This World Part Two

Culture Change – Being A Christian In This World Part Two: We get to share another presentation from the Pro-Family Legislators Conference this week! Lance Wallnau is with us and he is discussing how we can change the culture. Tune in now to hear part two of yesterday’s program!

Transcription note: As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live! We’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture. We always do that from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

Now, sometimes we have that conversation at an event like the Pro Family Legislators Conference and then we bring it to you here on WallBuilders Live. And that’s what’s happening this week. So, if you’re tuning in for the first time this week, yesterday we were beginning to share a great presentation from the legislators conference this year. Which, by the way, you can find out about the conference at ProFamily.org and it’s once a year, it’s an opportunity for state reps and senators to come together with a biblical worldview talking about ways to influence in a positive way the culture out there and get good legislation passed, kill bad legislation, all the things that our legislators do.

But we have some great speakers that come in. A week or so ago we shared Rabbi Daniel Lapin and his presentation at the legislators conference. And this week we’re sharing Lance Wallnau’s presentation on changing the culture. It’s going to be a three part series, so if you missed yesterday you can get that right now at our website at WallBuildersLive.com. Today obviously the middle of the program tomorrow we’ll get the conclusion. So, let’s pick up right where we left off yesterday with Lance Wallnau at the Pro Family Legislators Conference.

Lance Wallnau:

That was church growth oriented revival reading from Finley, to Wesley, to Whitefield. I was a student, I was going to Princeton Speare Library Theological Seminary. I read all the original works in the basement. The stuff– I think they thought I was a student because I walked off with so much of their inventory.

So, this megachurch model is still with most megachurch people delusionally think. If we make it bigger and make more of them eventually we’ll have– But the truth of the matter is, you can– as a matter of fact, I won’t go into this because I don’t have the time, but I could give you the data of the top 10 cities in North America with the top populations of Christians concentrated in them and show you an index of the top 10 cities with the greatest Christian population.

The Impediment to the Manifestation of Utopia

Lance Wallnau:

And then a transformation index as to alcoholism, divorce, poverty, justice, and I’ll show you something– that the most Christian populated cities are at the bottom of the list of transformed. The most Christian are the least transformed.

Now, I actually had a journalist call these pastors and say, “Are you aware of this data?” They weren’t aware it. When asked, the pastor said, “Well, God didn’t call me to get involved with addiction, or divorce, or– we do that in our church of course.” In other words, “It’s a service for people in this organization, but He didn’t make me responsible for everybody here, just the folks that I have influence over.” In other words, they weren’t focusing on it.

So, I went to the Lord I said, “I’m working on this model of building strong, powerful, multiplied, psyched, churches because I thought revival and evangelism will change America, salt and light.” And the Lord said, “I want you to look at what I said. The word was ‘Go ye into all the world.’” And I started looking at this in the Greek and the Aramaic and I found out that “go ye” if you really concentrate on it, means “ye go”. It was worth a ten year delay to get that thought straight.

So, then the United Nations is calling, businesses start calling, because my background was human resource training. So, I’m thinking, man, I’m going into all these places and I’m working with– and I realized something– the gates of hell, if you don’t mind me looking at this, this is how I look at it. I thought the gates of hell were all over the church. And if you ever worked with some deacons you know what I’m talking about. The gates of hell, I thought, were all here. The reality is “the gates” refers to the councils. And the councils are ingenious at concentrating their influence in exactly those sectors that have the greatest leverage to deceive the minds of masses.

Therefore from Hollywood, to CNN, to New York Times, to Wall Street, whether it’s the porn industry or pot. There is a principality hovering over each of these domains in order to see the right kings get to the gates of influence.

At the top of these mountains– I only refer to them as mountains with people because the picture is good, but in fact they are gates of influence – GOI. Biggest mistake we ever made as Christians is that our eschatology, our end-time thinking had us going to heaven when we die and the whole system going to hell before we left. What that did was it gave us no paradigm as evangelicals for changing the existing world.

Why is it that America is experiencing such a rapid decline into socialism and anarchy? It’s because the average millennial being tutored by the false prophets and teachers that are their rabbis think of it as a religious struggle. Their utopia is here, our utopia is in the next life. So, they’re fighting for heaven on earth while we’re fighting to go to heaven when we die. Who’s going to win that battle for geography?

In other words, we’re up against a movement that has a utopian vision for heaven on earth. And that vision can’t be accomplished with you because you are the impediment to the manifestation of utopia.

American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Many today wrongly claim that our Founding Fathers were largely atheists, agnostics, and deist.

Certainly some Founders were less religious than others, but even they were not irreligious. Consider Benjamin Franklin, definitely one of the least religious among them, yet, when the delegates at the Constitutional Convention hit an impasse in their deliberations it was Franklin who called them to prayer, invoking numerous scriptures to make his point.

As he reminded them, “God governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured in the sacred writings that, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this.”

So, even the least religious of America’s Founders urged public prayer in dependence on God. For more information about the faith of the Founding Fathers go to WallBuilders.com.

Lance Wallnau:

As soon as you get the fact this is a religious battle, understanding what the rabbis say, we’re up against secular fundamentalism as dangerous as jihad. And once you get that paradigm you realize although the church market will still stay stuck in its own vertical, you’ve got to become a “7M Practitioner”. So I gave up “seven mountains” to anyone who wanted to use it and then I trademarked “7 M” because I’m looking at these as 7 mission fields.

These Gates Can Work Either Way

Lance Wallnau:

Missions, by the way, there are two kinds of missions – churches– and we’ve got tons of money. Money goes into evangelism, helping *, Joyce Meyers, Joel Olsteen. Some people give to Billy Graham. So, most of the money will go towards missions work that will be evangelizing plenty of churches and taking the gospel around the world.

The second area missions money goes into is humanitarian relief – digging wells. Tsunamis, blankets, education. In other words, it’s helping the hurting.

And here’s where we miss it – the third area of missions that we should be funding is influence. Think of how pathetic this is. We’re focusing on evangelizing and disaster relief, but we don’t have a budget for influencing the gates of hell, or moving towards the gates of hell, or being an influence at the top of those systems.

And by the way, these gates can work either way. There was a time in American history where righteousness controlled the gates because Jesus– the Psalmist didn’t say, “Rule instead of your enemies.” That’s the mistake Christians make and it’s the one that they accuse us of – creating a Christian Taliban if we ever did come out of the closet. But the reality is we’re not ruling instead of our enemies – we’re ruling in the midst of them. Our job is to be a presence. This is where salt and light is needed – at the gates of influence. This is where righteousness is needed – at the gates of influence. Does that makes sense to you?

If you look at the percentage of liberal, progressive, agnostic, anti Christian, journalists that are in the major journalism outlets, writers and producers that are in the major Hollywood outlets, educators and administrators in the major universities, you’d realize the devil has done a far better job of positioning his priesthood than we have. Because we didn’t see these domains as critical territory, but each one of them feeds the collective mind of a nation.

The Third Category of Giving

Lance Wallnau:

And since we’re called to make disciples of nations, we should be recognizing which sphere we are call to go into. WallBuilders is brilliant at what they’re doing and my goal is to help them be able to dominate the field. Particularly, in the fields of education and government as relates to preserving the interests of healthy families so that the church has religious liberty.

And make no mistake about it – I work with guys in the State Department. Religious liberty is now, for us, when you think of all the issues – of course, there’s the unborn, and this and that, put a higher priority on religious liberty. Because religious liberty gives you the freedom of speech to address the other issues. You lose religious liberty, you’ve lost the right to engage the conversation on every subject. Make sense?

So the gates of hell are the influencers that we should have missionary budgets for influence to support the shaping of culture. As well as tsunami relief and reaching the unreached. Does that make sense to you? That’s the third category of giving.

And by the way, we’re looking at it now very strongly. There’s a group of conservative donors that I’m meeting with that are perhaps on track to be as big as the Koch brothers within the next 24 months. And I’m looking for people like you who can do something within the context of a model like this because this is what I’m showing them. They’re thinking this way, so I’m thinking, “How do we do this?”

So, you’ve got the 7M world, and the gates of hell are *, so what do we want to do? My personal conviction is reformation is top down. Reformation is institutional change and it comes from the gates of influence. If it isn’t bought into, signed into, and implemented at the gates, it doesn’t become permanent. This is the big naivety with Christians. Because what are Christians looking for? Well, they’re looking for revival. If you’re in my crowd it’s, “Oh, signs, and wonders, and miracles, and a great harvest, and stadium events.”

Wilberforce’s Transformation of a Nation

Lance Wallnau:

And it becomes rather naive because if you look at that era of the greatest societal transformation you would look at Wilberforce’s transformation of Great Britain from a vulgar lawless society with slavery as its primary driver for GDP. Think of the task of making a nation give up slavery and become a virtuous nation that honors Christianity. Both of those assignments is vast. That’s like if I was going to say, “You guys take care of abortion and you guys take care of the LGBT movement. Okay, now let’s move on.” It’s like both of those, any one of those, could be an impossibility.

But Wilberforce had the transformation of the nation, the eradication of slavery, and the restoration of Christian virtues and values at the top of the shared worldview. He had to do that in his one lifetime. How did he do it? Very important we get this. His strategy was in a sentence – a sustained pattern of public persuasion. You might want to write that down because our problem is we have a sustained pattern of private persuasion among ourselves. We do not have public persuasion and that’s the art form.

You need your advocate in each mountain. You need the campus oracle, you need the legislative oracle, you need the political oracle, you need the media oracle. And if we really pray, and get behind these people, and God is in this thing, then we’ll see what happened with the Clapham Estate.

So, what happened was money– which is what we’re doing now, we’re getting money together– money provided a place where Wilberforce to get his key legislators who were in parliament and they would meet over at the Clapham house, Clapham Estate. They would fellowship and they would meet with, catch this, the top people in all seven spheres – most influential families that also had business, they hit the key artists.

And what they did was they had– and watch this– reformation comes from the top down – revival strikes from the bottom up. Revival is grassroots. It breaks out here and then the elite get caught up in it. It doesn’t really break out much with the elites. So, if you have the kindling wood here you start the fire. These are the wet logs. It takes time.

This Precarious Moment Book

David:

This is David Barton. I want to let about a brand new book we have called This Precarious Moment, Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your family, and Our Country. Jim Garlow and I have co-authored this book and we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now.

Issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration, race relations, our relationship with Israel, the rising generation Millennials, and the absence of the church in the culture wars, and where American heritage is, our godly heritage. We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack and we give you both Biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference.

These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So you can grab the book This Precarious Moment and find out what you can do to make a difference. This Precarious Moment is available at WallBuilders.com.

Lance Wallnau:

Never confuse revival with reformation because reformation is institutional transformation. Revival is interpersonal transformation.

So, the activists in revival would be marshalled by the gates of influence, leaders that met with Wilberforce at the Clapham Estate. And they came up with legislation and they came up with grassroots campaigns so that the people on the ground not only were revivalists, but they were activists. Someone was trying to push for the Society for the prevention of the Cruelty to Animals SPCA – that was the Wilberforce initiative. When that happened all systems go. The media hit it, the activists hit it, the preachers hit it – sustained patterns of public persuasion. That’s what the left does – it beats us up. Have you guys thought about this? Makes sense?

So, for my money revival is grassroots bottom up, reformation is top down, and when the two of them are working synergistically you have an awakening. You have the whole nation shifting its systems because there’s a fire in the base. But there’s thinkers at the top that are in sympathy with some of those messages and values. And that’s– and then God raises up strange leaders.

And this is another thing – Christians have this tendency, because of this secular spiritual dichotomy, when it comes time for someone to become a president first thing they want to know, as I’ve learned now that I’ve been among them, is, “Well, is a born again? Is he a Christian? I’m going to suggest you that’s not the first question. The first question is what do they really believe?

At the End of the Day

Lance Wallnau:

Because at the end of the day Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln would not have passed the litmus test of evangelicals in Iowa for president – not Christian enough. Historically looking back they were actually the perfect people for the job.

How do you form your politics? Same way that you look at– you start with your principles. The principles – do they line up with the word of God? I want to know if he really lines– I want to know if Churchill really lines up with Judeo Christian values. Well, thank God he saw the confrontation in Europe as Hitler representing an anti Christian force and that the light of Christian civilization, Christian civilization he saw, was what he was fighting for.

Alright, so the first thing is you want to make sure that you’re clear in your principles and other people are clear. Policy comes out of principles. Politics comes out of policy. In other words, your principles have to be grounded in the word, your policies are congruent with the word, and then your politics comes out of that. You don’t start with the politics – you start with the idea, the principle, that’s being advanced. Does that make sense?

This kind of saves you from the insanity of buying in to an “us versus them” mentality. Because if I can find one of them that actually believes this principle, I can be a cold belligerent – if we’re in alignment with the same principle. Does that makes sense to you? Oh we’ll move on. What the heck. Okay.

This is a mess. As we continue going on it becomes even more confusing. So, I think I should erase it. Any questions in it so far?

Gates of influence – probably 3 percent from what I’m looking at, 3 percent of the population operate at the gates of influence. The majority are shaped by the 3 percent. And I found out something, I found something my father was hiding from me. I’m actually Jewish on my father’s side and I’ve actually got family members in Israel. I’ve got a whole tribe in Israel. This was kind of a shock.

You Can Be a Minority and Shape Culture

Lance Wallnau:

And I found out that Abraham, the Jews, have an interesting perspective on this. Jews are leading a lot. It’s like somebody once said that the reason why there is so much anti-Semitism against Jews is because they’re so successful you just don’t like them. But the truth of the matter is this – they’re 2.5 percent of the population, but where are they? They are at the top of every mountain.

They’re the top law school professors, the top– for better or for worse– the top producers, the top Hollywood people, the top money. You guys tracking with this? From Bernstein, to Seinfeld, to Dershowitz, Jewish people, 2.5 percent of the population. What does that tell you? It tells you you don’t have to be the majority to shape culture. That’s what it tells you. And I find that Jewish influence is very good in America. And it could be very problematic too because a lot of it is not controlling media and entertainment. But you can be a minority and shape culture. How? Proximity to the gates of influence.

Which is why we were told Abraham said, “You’re called to be above and not beneath.” I love that. You’re supposed to be the head – not the tail. Stop thinking about just surviving. We should be the head and not the tail, above and– we should be in proximity to the gates of influence. We should actually be moving towards the top of the mountain and we should be finding out who’s shaping policy at the gates of influence, make them the specific object of prayer. Pray for those in authority – doesn’t say just pray for the president. Because it could be that Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is having more influence.

And these guys are all, it’s amazing, the people that are in the tech space right now are actually making movies and TV – like Hulu and Apple. So, they’re now the new Hollywood and the new media. You keep– we’ll keep an eye on it. So, pray for the rulers of those places.

How It Was Done

Lance Wallnau:

And when you’re vision casting and people, only 10 percent of the church world that’s out there is called to be in full time ministry in this sphere or running a full-time nonprofit. The 90 percent of the people that are out there are supposed to find their passion to go to the top of one of these mountains. Does that make sense?

Wilberforce did it by a sustained pattern of public persuasion, targeting the gates of influence, working with influencers, and grassroots activists revival culture. And over a period of time they shifted the mindset of the nation with a thousand pinpricks to its conscience. Not all preaching – a lot of it was data and good arguments that shifted the conscience towards righteousness. And that’s what we lack.

Alright, so, I’m going to show you something else. This is kind of interesting. There’s so much we can cover right now. Donald Trump– So, Donald Trump, I’m one of three people USA Today has recorded predicted accurately that Donald Trump was going to be president while he was running against 16 other people. I predicted it and I predicted it after meeting him a second time. And I felt the Lord said this to me. He said, “Isaiah 45. He’s going to be the next president of United States.” Right away I figured well, this could be a deceiving spirit, a voice, I could almost hear a voice, “Isaiah 45. Next president of the States.” So, right away I did what most people would do to test this out. I went to Google to find out if the next president was 45.

Because if it’s 46 or 44 I know it’s the wrong choice. Well, Barack Obama was 44, but he was reelected. So I knew he probably was 45. I’m revealing my absolute electoral political naivety right now. I thought if he’s 45, then 44, then the next time he gets older he gets 45. Like they keep– like pajamas, they keep on changing the size. But no, he stays with the same number next president’s 45.

So, I go to Isaiah 45, “Thus says the Lord to Cyrus whom I have anointed and taken by the right hand to subdue his adversaries, to undo the belt of kings, to release to him the treasures of darkness. And this I’m going to do for my people and for Israel’s sake though he doesn’t even know me.” And the Lord says, “Because I’m a God that delights in hiding Himself.” Bam! I thought, “Oh boy, this particular prophetic insight will go down like a red sandwich. Nobody wanted to hear this.

Bring A Speaker To Your Area

Tim:

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard a wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, and about all the things that make America exceptional.

And you might be thinking, “As incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group.”

Whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event, or activity, if you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. If you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bio’s, to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event, to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties, and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and Bring a speaker to your area.

Lance Wallnau:

Evangelicals love Christians running for office. It’s a particular bias – “Hey Ted Cruz – great Christian.” “Marco Rubio – he really does love the Lord.” Oh, oh, Dr. Ben Carson. His middle name is Solomon.” I said, “Look, you line them all up, they’re great evangelicals, pick the one heathen, that’s the one God’s got.”

Why? I said, “Because he’s not hampered. This guy could be, he could be the best weapon, he could be a wrecking ball. He could be pro Israel, he could be pro Christian, he could be pro Jesus for that matter, he could be pro put Christ back in Christmas. And you know what? The left will go crazy because no one will accuse him of trying to do this because he’s a Christian.”

The Importance of Intercessors

Lance Wallnau:

So, I said here’s how it goes, this is biblical. So, Jeremiah prophesies 70 years captivity. And this is what we call the prophets. Prophets prophecy. America has a great destiny over that isn’t finished yet. I don’t believe it’s supposed to go down. I think if it goes down on our watch it goes down because the devil was able to take something from us that God wasn’t wanting to give us because we didn’t know how to mobilize effectively enough to resist it, so that’s another story.

Jeremiah prophesies 70 years captivity. I believe there’s prophets– and I believe the prophetic destiny of the USA isn’t done yet. So, Jeremiah says 70 years captivity. But then what happens is Daniel comes along and what is Daniel? Daniel is an intercessor. He prays and he literally looks at the prophecy of Daniel and says, “Oh, the 70 years is up.” It’s intercessors that have a sense of urgency about the timing.

I would say that in the last election there was a vast move of nervous people praying. And the fact that I know that is the fact that 20 million of them actually went out and voted with like eighty five percent unity. And they weren’t even talking to each other, they weren’t all on the same YouTube channel. 20 million what Barna calls “spiritually active governmentally engaged conservatives”.

Culture Change – Being A Christian In This World Part Two

Rick:

Alright, friends, this is Rick Green. I’ve got to interrupt our special speaker for today. You’ve been listening to Lance Wallnau at our Pro Family Legislators Conference this year. We’re at a time for today. We’re going to pick up tomorrow with the conclusion of Lance’s presentation there at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. If you tuned in in the middle of the program it’s a three part series. Yesterday we had the first part. That’s available right now at WallBuildersLive.com. Today, obviously, the middle. That’s also available at the website today. And then tomorrow you can pick up the conclusion.

We’ll be back tomorrow here on WallBuilders Live. You don’t want to miss it. We’ll get the conclusion of Lance Wallnau speaking at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. Thank you so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.

WALLBUILDERS LIVE! with David Barton, Tim Barton and Rick Green is a daily journey into the past to capture the ideas of the Founding Fathers of America and then apply them to the major issues of today. Featured guests will include Congressmen, Senators, and other elected officials, as well as experts, activists, authors, and commentators on a variety of issues facing America.